The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Asplenium plant, botanically known as Asplenium nidus L., of the Aspleniaceae, commonly known as Birds Nest Fern, and hereinafter referred to by the variety denomination ‘CRISPY WAVE’.
The new Asplenium ‘CRISPY WAVE’ is a product of a planned breeding program conducted in Yaku Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. A naturally occurring whole plant mutation of the unpatented Asplenium nidus L. ‘OSAKA’ was discovered and selected as a single flowering plant by the inventor's grandfather, Haruo Sugimoto, in 1961. Many more years of spore propagation and further selection in the proprietary offspring of ‘OSAKA’ resulted in the discovery and selection of the new Asplenium ‘CRISPY WAVE’ in 2000 by the inventor, Yuki Sugimoto. The parent plant of ‘CRISPY WAVE’ is an unnamed, unpatented proprietary Asplenium nidus L. plant, and is an offspring of ‘OSAKA’. Plants of the new Asplenium ‘CRISPY WAVE’ are more stiff, upright, and compact than plants of ‘OSAKA’.
Asexual reproduction of the new Asplenium ‘CRISPY WAVE’ cultivar by spores was first performed by the inventor, Yuki Sugimoto, in 2000 in Yamato-gun, Fukuoka, Japan, and has demonstrated that the combination of characteristics as herein disclosed for the new cultivar are firmly fixed and retained through successive generations of spore reproduction. The new cultivar reproduces true-to-type.